


Come As You Are

by ninemoons42



Series: Serial Killer 'Verse [9]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Bondage, Broken!Erik, Dark!Charles, First Time, M/M, Serial Killers, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-04
Updated: 2012-01-04
Packaged: 2017-10-28 22:24:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/312812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42





	Come As You Are

  
title: Come As You Are  
author: [](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**ninemoons42**](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/)  
word count: approx. 2070  
fandom: X-Men: First Class [movieverse]  
characters: Charles Xavier, Erik Lehnsherr  
rating: NC-17  
notes: And finally, we're here. The conclusion to the universe of [Knife and Needle and Rope](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/tag/story+arc:+serial+killer+%27verse): Charles and Erik find themselves looking at each other, finally as they are, finally as they were supposed to be all along.  
Warning for basically most serial killer / murder mystery tropes and everything else that might be associated with the idea of a dark version of Charles Xavier, including child abuse. Additional warnings are included for bondage, D/s overtones, and discussion of rape.

  
The knife is the kill is _power_.

The man is small and insignificant. Or that would be the case if the man weren't a menace to others and to himself. It's the little things that will always manage to add up to one big reason to go over the edge, Charles thinks, and it's a familiar enough thought process that he knows where he ought to stop for fear of the abyss looking up into him.

It's taken him a while to pin the man down, because he moves exactly as Charles might, were he the one being pursued. This victim ducks and weaves, and Charles has spent the past few days watching for his patterns, for his boltholes.

He enjoys the chase.

He likes it when he can lead people into a trap of his own choosing, past the snares and baits and false trails they might lay down for themselves, for anyone hunting them. Time is meaningless, to him, in this state. He has a book, and he has music, and he thinks nothing of being alone with his thoughts for hours on end.

So Charles makes his move, now, as the man emerges from a tattered door leading into some rundown anonymous flat, and plods out into the misty night.

He's not in a hurry, not for this one.

Charles whistles softly: varying pitches and tones, a handful of songs, irregular intervals. It could call attention to him – it also hides him. Perhaps the other man thinks there are just a few people out there who whistle against a night like this. A song is not a defense against cold or dark or loneliness.

As he follows, Charles's mind churns through the things this man has done.

The man stops, no more than a flimsy shadow under flickering lights, and Charles smiles and walks past and huddles into his new coat, something he'd picked up because it was too large for him, and perhaps could fit Erik.

Erik, back in the cramped and dubious shelter of the bedroom over the tattoo shop; Charles remembers glimpsing it briefly. Calling it a _room_ is magnanimous. Not much there but a tiny bed and the stacks of books in every corner; he wonders how Erik could have selected one or two to take away with him, on that night.

That night, watching Erik kill, laying hands on him. Erik moving, like watching film speeding up and then slowing down – hesitant and resolute at the same time. He remembers holding out a hand to him, and he remembers Erik stooping down to collect shell casings. Brass lying bent and twisted in his hand, four pieces.

Charles remembers the strange relief in Erik's eyes after they'd disposed of the corpse.

Here, now, he returns to himself, and the man is behind him, now, running. Labored breaths. Charles steps aside, lets the man pass. Good, he's heading in the right direction.

Charles chuckles to himself, briefly, as he wonders what the police will think once they put together the dossier on this man. Perhaps some of them might be led to think it's a good thing he's dead. Killing is no way to solve anyone's problems, after all – but when the body belongs to a rapist, someone who _marks_ his victims, isn't that justice in its own way?

 _There._ Time to move, Charles thinks, and he ducks into the next alleyway, begins to sprint. He has to time it perfectly. The man will pass this street corner and that lamp post, and he'll stop just in the mouth of this other passage and – yes, there he is.

Charles reaches out. Soft flesh, yielding, bruising. He clenches his hand on the man, tightens the grip into a fist, and now he hears a sharp gasp. He braces his feet, pulls.

 _Thud._

Charles is on one knee in an instant, the other pressed into the man's throat, and Charles bears down, watches the man fight for a desperate breath.

He'll say nothing this time. There are no words for scum like this.

Splinterstrike of distant light off the blade as he flips it out. One stroke, clean and fast. Into the man's heart, a rapid twist, and out again. Between one breath and another, the man is dead, shock still in the lines of his face.

Charles takes his time, cleans the blade carefully on the man's shirt. There is blood on his hands, too, and he ought to be cleaning that up, but this is the right weather for keeping hands in pockets and maybe he can get away with it tonight.

Something moves in the shadows behind him.

Charles moves, slowly now, more deliberately, and he sheathes the knife, lets it disappear up his sleeve.

“I told you not to follow me,” he says, quietly, over his shoulder.

///

Erik freezes, and then it's as if his body is moving independently of his mind, of his heart, what little is left of it, because suddenly he's walking, and he stops with a jerk. Just out of Charles's reach.

There isn't even enough light to see everything in the alley. The corpse is a darker shadow against broken pavement, and Charles would disappear into the night if he hadn't been moving. Small, efficient movements.

Erik sighs when he realizes Charles is cleaning up, is getting rid of the blood on his hands. Far less than Erik had expected. Charles kills with a knife, kills with a single thrust to the heart, and evidently he's been laboring under the assumption that this means blood spatter everywhere. He shakes his head, and feels adrift, lost suddenly.

When he looks back up Charles is looking at him, blue eyes seeming to take in all the night and its mists.

Erik can't look away.

He watches Charles stalk towards him, and he has the briefest idea of running – but no, Erik is still pinned down and now he is moving, as well, he's being made to move back and back and he suddenly hits something. Charles's hand on his skin, a firm grip on his jaw, and Erik feels rough brick under his cheek as Charles moves him to look away, and he almost keens at the loss when – _what, no, please...._

Charles's mouth is on him. He takes Erik's mouth in a swift and searing kiss, then moves down: hot and sucking at his throat, at the veins in his neck, and Erik hisses a breath and doesn't know what to do. He wants to press into that touch. He wants to fight away from it. Sensation lances through him, hard and hurting and _beautiful_.

Erik wants, suddenly, and the realization nearly breaks him, makes him gasp and then there's a hand on his mouth, and Erik can't breathe, can't react. He'll shatter. He'll fall to pieces. Charles is so, so close.

Too much, too much, and then suddenly Charles is pulling away, and Erik pleads, brokenly – _no, no_. There is a pleased hum in response. A hand on his wrist.

Erik stumbles after Charles, out of the alley, out into the mists. Theirs are the only footsteps in the night, a ringing cadence, as rapid as the runaway beat of his heart.

Charles makes him retrace his steps, stands lookout as Erik fumbles with his keys. Out of the cold, into a space that reeks of blood and sweat and salt and ink.

They've been heading here all along. Here is his workbench, tools and ink in their proper places. Here is the couch. The cushions still bear a faint impression of Erik's body, contorted into some semblance of stillness.

Erik tips his head back and smiles, and the mirrors in the workroom reflect him, over and over.

Something moves in the corner of his eye, and there's a hand on his shoulder and Erik is being spun around, roughly, shoved down to his knees, and he looks up and up, into Charles's face. A thin rim of shadow-blue around blown pupils. He looks like he's been...like he's been destroyed, _he looks like me,_ Erik thinks, and that's what makes him move his hands. He just barely reaches Charles's shoulders – he pushes, very gently, and he strains upward into a desperate breath of a kiss.

Movement, impact, and Erik has suddenly transitioned from being on his knees on the floor to being on his knees atop the couch – the difference is Charles, kneeling within the circle of Erik's arms, pressed so close there's not an inch of space between them, and he's kissing Erik again. Benediction and curse, breath of life, touch of the grave, and he desperately winds his arms around Charles, tries to bring him closer, patent impossibility, they're touching from shoulders to hips and he's going to shake himself apart.

Charles's hands are moving over him, and Erik catches his breath again. Push. Erik is on his back and he can't catch his breath, he's well on the way to overwhelmed and he doesn't want this to stop, he doesn't ever want Charles to stop. Callused fingers tracing over his skin. Erik gasps Charles's name.

“Tengwar, really,” Charles is saying, and Erik only has a split-second to try and look at him before it's all he can do to hang on to himself, because Charles is kissing that tattoo as though he knows the song, is following the text with his lips and his tongue, and Erik nearly disappears into the need that sears through him, sweeter than needles and pain.

He's fighting to get up, mad to touch Charles, needing to feel him, needing more than just the knowledge of the black phoenix – there's a hand catching at him, gripping tightly at his wrists. Charles is sprawled out on top of him. Hard unyielding heat of his mouth. He _wants_ Erik, too.

No, no, he can't lose himself, not yet, not _before_. With a supreme effort Erik closes his eyes, mumbles around the tongue in his mouth – “Sorry, don't, please, Charles” – and he moves his hands up to Charles's shoulders and _wrenches_ him away. He fumbles beneath the couch, and he smiles when his hand closes around something. Eyes still closed, he draws out the item, offers it to Charles.

“Erik.” Oh, god, Charles sounds like he's been screaming, and it is the most beautiful thing Erik's ever heard.

“Charles,” he whispers.

“Why do you trust me?”

Erik opens his eyes, and Charles is – Charles is straddling him, is playing out the rope, is testing its strength in his hands, and all the while his eyes are fixed on Erik, mouth open. His lips are wet against the dark red flush of his face, Erik wonders how far down it goes, wants to find out – but Charles's knees tighten in warning at his waist.

He settles, instead, for saying, “Because you see me. I repeat myself. And because you were so still, so quiet, the entire time you were under my hands. You wanted me to do that to you. You _trusted_ me. You were _present_. How could I not trust you otherwise?”

A long, charged moment.

Something cracks in Charles's face, in those depthless eyes, and Erik is just about to call his name when – Charles strikes.

The rope snaps against Erik's skin, and he's still sensitive from earlier, and from the rainy night. He doesn't cry out; he doesn't protest. Charles warps him, pushes and pulls at him, tears at him – Erik flows, obedient, calm, unafraid, trussed up and naked at last.

Here he is, finally, free at last; Charles must see him now, as he truly is, beneath the ink and the glasses and the fear.

Erik looks up into Charles's eyes and – _yes_ , that is him, too. Charles as he truly is, more than just the black phoenix, more than just the knife in its sheath on the bared skin of his arm and the eerie competence with which he ties off his knots.

He smiles, again, and this must be a different one because Charles is returning it, in the split-second before his rough hands are reeling Erik in, tied down and _himself_ , both of them near breathless with need, and this is how one ends, and this is how another begins.  



End file.
